REMEMBER ME?...
The Part 26
Vano entered the restaurant located on the lower floor with gontai steps. After ordering a glass of americano to the waiter, he sat in a chair close to the window that led out. He stared straight at the streets crowded with people on foot. Seriously staring at the streets, he seemed unaware that his order had been delivered and was in front of him. He did not even hear the greeting of the waiter who delivered him.
He sighed then slowly massaged his painful temple.
Chilly. Shells. A necklace fell right off the rock. I heard someone crying. A little boy was crying beside her. The little boy is a girl. He was crying as much as he could.
“It's your fault..,”
The sound of car squeaks and loud noises are produced from collisions between large vehicles and large vehicles.
“We'd better take the bus now,”
“But there's something I have to do,”
CIIIIT!!!
“You remember my birthday? Others don't remember,”
BRAKKK!!!
Vano widened his eyes. His breathing was stinging and his chest felt heavy. Suddenly the flashes returned to him, but he did not want to remember them anymore.
“You're here?”
The voice brought Vano back to the real world. The man blinked his eyes a few times with a still stingy breath while looking at someone before him. Then he knitted both of his eyebrows.
“Brian Wijaya?”
Brian smiled as he sat in front of Vano. He ordered a cup of coffee at the waiter and looked back at Vano.
“Yes, why are you here?” brian asked as he looked at Vano with his round eyes.
“Do not think the same as what I think,” guess the man.
Vano's forehead wrinkled and Vano's eyes narrowed as soon as Brian pulled out something brownish and showed it to Vano. Instantly, Vano's eyes opened wide followed by his mouth, signaling an excessive sense of shock.
“It.... that..,”.
Brian stared at the brownish thin box object in his hand with a cover inscribed with something in gold ink. Then he nodded his head.
“This is your engagement invitation letter, I was given Kiara. All staff were given one each. And, why didn't you tell me?!”
Not answering Brian's question, Vanl immediately snatched the object he said was his engagement invitation from Brian's hands. He opened the invitation and looked up as soon as he saw the name listed there.
Vano Alexander and Kiara Kusuma
It was really their engagement invitation!
“When did he give you this?” ask Brian Vano.
Brian who was sipping his coffee who had just arrived turned to Vano for a moment and replied, saying,
Vano. He just remembered that his engagement was held tomorrow. So shocked, he did not even realize the invitation had switched hands on Brian.
“Private party, huh? In seriously? Why are you engaged to Kiara? Don't you hate him, I mean, now?” ask Brian while rounding up the invitation letter.
“Not my will. Family relations, company,” Vano said briefly. But Brian understood.
“Why not because of you?” ask Brian.
“you know, if you're still the old you, I'm sure this engagement is not because of family or company, but because of you.”
Vano looked back at Brian in confusion. “What do you mean? You mean, I used to—“
“Yes, you used to love it. Very,” replied Brian casually while keeping the invitation on the table.
“At school, Kiara has trouble expressing her feelings until one day she can suddenly explode and get angry at anyone. She's lonely, she's always been a bully of her schoolmates. They were looking for reasons on the girl's physique that were less common especially when she was in Primary School and Secondary School. You're always helping him. You were his friend for most of your life. You two have always been like letters and stamps. My presence can't even change your relationship. You guys are so close. And when you entered High School, you admitted you liked it. It was your first love,” Brian said.
Vano was silent. Nervously, he drank his americano which was getting cold. “Kiara... was my first love?” reset Vano.
Brian nodded lightly, as if what he said earlier did not burden Vano's mind. “You should be happy right now, Vano Alexander. Not many people can end up with their first love,” added the man.
“What.... At that time Kiara also liked me?” ask Vano carefully. For some reason, his voice was stuck. He again felt a strange feeling that enveloped his heart. At first, he thought it was a pity, but, once immersed, it was different. It's warmer.
Brian shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know, he never really told me, but seeing his efforts all this time, it seems so.”
DEG.
Hearing that, Vano's heart suddenly seemed to stop. His gaze was suddenly blurry, and his head felt spinning. He thought the flashes that always haunted him would come back, but they did not. Only his heart suddenly hurt. It happened only a few seconds so Brian did not notice it. When Brian regained consciousness, Vano had returned to normal.
___
Vano never admitted it, but even though his therapy a few years ago was unsuccessful and even traumatized, he still remains haunted by flashes of his past that sometimes suddenly flashed before his eyes. Perhaps because he did not want to be strong, so that the flashes only ended as a flash and not as a complete memory.
In the past, when he knew that his therapy would not work and instead scared him and traumatized him, coupled with a few people using his amnesia to manipulate his memories and blackmail his family by claiming to be an acquaintance of his past, Vano chooses to break with his past. No matter how hard his family, friends, coworkers ask him to remember his past, he still does not want to. No matter how some of his friends forced him to hit him even once, Vano remained unmoved.
He wants to protect his family. That was all he thought about at the time.
But when he returned to Korea, all his thoughts changed completely. He did not like it, he could feel someone ready to trick him again here if he knew his status. He ignored the familiarity in the place where he stood, and still suggested that he should be vigilant, should close himself.
And the girl came. Vano is just trying to protect himself by saying that he does not remember it and does not want to remember it. He was afraid of being fooled again by such a trick as before. He ignored his parents' reprimands even his sister who said that the girl really knew him long ago. He also ignored the strange feeling that was still faint when he first looked at the girl. He may not remember, but his heart remembers him. And Vano ignored him back then because he thought he had Windy.
Now, whatever got into him, all of a sudden when he felt he had known Kiara, accepted her, also in Brian's presence, the urge to remember his past back and make those flashes come back to haunt him. Even more often.
Is this a sign?
That he should indeed re-start everything from the beginning of his past—?
...****************...